Researchers at Loma Linda University have released the first interactive global sea turtle sightings smartphone app ever developed.
Dustin Baumbach, a PhD student, and his advisor, Stephen G. Dunbar, PhD, developed the app. They are both sea turtle researchers in the department of earth and biological sciences at Loma Linda University School of Medicine and study sea turtles through the Protective Turtle Ecology Center for Training, Outreach, and Research Inc. (ProTECTOR Inc.) in the country of Honduras.
“We saw the need for people to be a part of the scientific process — to link up with us as researchers and become citizen-scientists,” Dunbar says.
Dunbar has been studying sea turtles in the country of Honduras for the past nine years and has spent much of that time working around the Islands of Roatán and Utila. While researching sea turtles in Roatán in 2014, he and Baumbach developed a mapping system that allows scuba divers and snorkelers to upload photographs and information about turtles they’ve just seen.
“We discussed the idea and thought, ‘Wouldn’t it be cool if we could develop a smartphone app that people around the world could use to upload photos and information about turtles that could actually help sea turtle conservation researchers?’ So I set out to develop the app myself,” says the 26-year old Baumbach.
The app, named TURT (Turtles Uniting Researchers and Tourists), is the first and only smartphone app available that can map sightings and photographs of sea turtles anywhere in the world. The app launched on April 4 and is available for free at app stores for iPhones and Androids.
The app can be found at Google Play; it will be available within a week from the iPhone app store.